Loft on Park Avenue South
New York City

Like for many young Manhattan families, even a 2000-sf loft seemed tight. This was acerbated by the diversity of the program and scenarios envisioned. From Master suite to kid’s (or kids’) room, a guest room for family (or guests), a living room for relaxing (or entertaining), storage for skis, to an office for Working at home, the complex condition of the urban family had been revealed.

The core of the apartment became a way of grounding the fragments and a point of reference for all subsequent movements. Screening, sliding and discovery were all devices used to expand space. Tight within the walnut core were small, secluded havens: the bathrooms. Insular, unique and precious, these spaces are separated from a view to the world. They became the most calm and most fantastic internal spaces of the Project, physically as well as mentally. Grounded and defined by the Core, the exterior façade became secondary in geometry and the spaces became free of the external envelope. Key elements realize increasing fluidity as the distance form the Core increases. The foyer screen provides the clearest key to the idea of defining station points along the promenade thru the loft and the idea that movement affects a point of view. Defining geometries of perspective at these significant station points become the abstract starting point for other conceptual structures of interval, permutation, level, and luminance.